Florida men who allegedly bribed Hawaii Army official plead not guilty
Two Florida men accused of bribing a U.S. Army official with $1.25 million over five years to secure contracts from the military’s Hawaii-Pacific Innovation Campus on Oahu pleaded not guilty in federal court in Honolulu on Wednesday morning.
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Leonard Pick, 62, of Palm Beach Shores, Fla., and Brian Kent, 59, of Tampa, Fla., are each charged with one count of conspiracy to commit bribery and major fraud against the federal government, one count of bribery, one count of major fraud against the federal government, and one count of wire fraud.
They pleaded not guilty before U.S. Magistrate Judge Barry M. Kurren. Both men surrendered their passports and were released on unsecured $50,000 bonds. Their travel is restricted to their Florida neighborhoods and Oahu for court appearances. Their trial is scheduled to start Aug. 3.
The pair is also barred from conducting any financial transactions in excess of $10,000 without prior court approval.
Kent is also charged with a second count of major fraud against the federal government.
Pick was arrested in Virginia and Kent was arrested in Florida on May 20.
The toughest penalty for conspiracy to commit bribery and major fraud is five years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine. The maximum penalty for bribery is 15 years in federal prison and a fine of either $250,000 or three times the monetary value of the bribe, whichever is greater, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
The Army official in Hawaii who was allegedly bribed by Pick and Kent hasn’t been charged or named by the U.S. Department of Justice.
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Kent is represented by William L. Shipley and Pick’s attorney is William A. Harrison.
According to a May 14 indictment, from January 2021 to October 2022, Pick and Kent conspired to bribe a U.S. Army employee with about $1.25 million over five years and fraudulently inflated government contracting costs to include the Army employee’s bribe payments.
From September 2020 to October 2022, Kent allegedly further defrauded the government by inflating government contract costs to include approximately $680,000 in payments intended for and sent to Kent’s personal consulting business, according to federal court records.
The pair allegedly took advantage of the U.S. Army Pacific Command’s funding of the Hawaii-Pacific Innovation Campus, which the Department of Defense spent more than $100 million to fund. The project included the construction of the Pacific Innovation Center, a place where defense industry vendors could showcase and test new technologies for potential adoption and procurement.
Pick and Kent’s alleged “co-conspirator one,” as identified in federal court records, was a civilian “Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Capabilities Officer” employed by USARPAC from 2016 to 2022 and was the federal government’s “primary Representative” for the innovation center.
